CHAPTER EIGHT
To Noise Making (Sing)

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"YOU'VE GOTTA BE KIDDIN' ME, BONNIE!"

As the sweltering heat of the day quells into the early evening chorus, Winona's lamentations ring through their camp with a vengeance. The False Widows have gathered around a roaring campfire to eat their meal together — Clementine and Tallulah congregating on a fallen log, while Jolene joins Dakota and Brandy on the wildflower speckled grass. Steam curls off their stew, still piping hot and dappled in the freshly chopped herbs that they'd foraged from the sparse woodlands earlier that day. The sleepy sky is void of clouds and fleeting traces of stardust are visible behind the setting sun, the darkness kept at bay by the leaping embers from their fire.

With gun oil slicking her hands and a smouldering cigarette balanced between her teeth, Winona gawks at Bonnie in pure disbelief. She'd nearly fallen flat on her ass at the throwaway revelation that the one and only Mister Van Der Linde had invited the False Widows to come over for the evening. A get together at their camp.

"What if it's an attack, hm?" Winona demands, raising her eyebrows for emphasis. "How d'you know they're not just actin' all friendly and hospitable so they can catch us off guard? Rob us blind?"

"They were obliging enough when Jolene and I stayed for a drink the other day," Clementine chimes in. "Seemed half decent on the job, as well. That's gotta mean something."

Winona opens her mouth to protest before snapping it shut, lips twisting in a grimace as doubt creeps up on her. There's certainly something about the abrupt kindness that feels barbed, almost as if it's being weaponised against them — Winona just can't put her finger on how, and it's driving her round the bend.

Silence strums for a beat and festers too long, like carrion cooking in the sun, broken only by the faraway cry of a coyote or the slumping logs in their fire. The girls shift in their seats and exchange wary side glances. Fed up, Bonnie sighs and reclines on her creaky chair, draping an arm over the back of it while she rubs at her temple.

"Don't be like that, sugar," she tuts. "They're practically family, they won't try nothing."

"Oh, listen to y'self, Bonnie. We hardly know them!"

"Hence why we're paying 'em a social call." Bonnie counters, splaying her hands wide.

The crackling firelight shines like golden hell upon her raven hair, the shadows defining her angular features dancing with every unpredictable lick of the flames. Her necklace constricts around her collarbones like a noose of ruby and gold, dripping down to the crux of her chest as though it's a steady trickle of blood, ichor cleaved into dribbling quarters by a scorching blade. Her ferocity is more than familiar to Winona by now, but the sting of Bonnie's glare still has a way of making her go all red faced and bashful. 'Cause, at the end of the day, there's no antivenom for the toxin that is Bonnie Diamondback.

"I just don't wanna spend any more time around those men than I have to," Winona grumbles stubbornly. She kicks a pebble.

Tallulah laughs. "And you think we do?"

"No!" she cries, throwing her hands up and showering the grass in cigarette ash. "Which is why this plan is batshit crazy!"

"Plan." Bonnie lets out that low, beguiling laugh of hers. "You're talkin' about it as if we're strategising. We ain't infiltrating them. We're just— we're accepting an invitation."

"You're always strategising, Bonnie," Brandy points out through a mouthful of stew.

She winks. "They don't gotta know that, though."

Jolene dissolves into a fit of giggles and Dakota scolds Brandy for not chewing properly, fussing over her like an anxious mother hen. Clementine's hardly paying attention as she sharpens a knife — meanwhile, Tallulah leans back on her palms, watching the conversation unfold with feline leisure and puffing smoke rings into the humid evening.

Growing restless, Bonnie rises to her feet, her skirts swishing around a fine pair of black leather boots as she begins to pace. Where there may have been a seed of doubt planted within her, it seems that Winona's yapping has made it take root — her thick eyebrows knit and her pretty face pinches into a concentrated frown that speaks louder than her charming words ever will. Silent, unassuming tells of her unease, but tells nonetheless.

In a flash, Winona can discern that flickering hesitation on her face and perks up, desperate to worm her way out of their plans.

"I can see this is weighing on your mind, boss. I'll jus' stay back with Brandy," she insists, grinning anxiously. "Get out from under your feet."

"No, you won't. Dakota already volunteered." Bonnie comes to a halt and fixes her with a hard stare, hands planted firmly on her hips. "Listen, it'll be good for you to socialise after all that time in Ambarino these past months. Living rough in the wilderness might've toughened you up in your eyes, girl, but we need allies to stay strong out here. Real allies."

"I've got y'all," Winona mutters. "Don't need no more friends."

She spits into the soil next to her boots to show Bonnie exactly what she thinks of her idea.

"This is what I'm talkin' about!" Bonnie admonishes. "Behaving like an animal. Hell's teeth, Bennet, you're a grown woman."

"Since when did you care about manners?" Winona sweeps a broad arm toward their camp of sagging tents and battered caravans. "If you hadn't noticed, we're outlaws. I'm not a high society lady no more, Bonnie, I left that horseshit behind me years ago."

At that, Brandy lets out a sharp cackle before breaking off into a violent coughing fit, pounding on her chest with her fist as a mouthful of stew goes the wrong way. Dakota nearly faints on the spot.

"Goddamn it, Brenda!"

As Bonnie gets distracted, Winona sags down into her chair with a foul expression toiling on her freckled face. She folds her arms like a sulking child and lets her hat fall low over her eyes, her tongue red hot and prickling with a slew of unspoken words. So focused on brooding, she hardly spares a second glance when a hand comes down on her shoulder, her periphery crowded by auburn curls and smooth meadowsweet skin.

Jolene sucks her teeth and, much to her chagrin, says: "Bonnie's right, sweet pea." She nudges her. "This will be good for us! You shouldn't, uh, put all your eggs in one basket, so to speak."

Tallulah stops blowing smoke circles across the campfire to grin at her. "Think about it this way, darling: new friends are easy targets."

"We ain't robbing my cousin," Bonnie barks. She sits back down in a pointed ballad of jingling spurs and tangled jewellery.

The girls blink at her snippy tone, wide eyed and sheepish, tensing up like deer caught in the centre of a sniper scope. Their camp goes completely still in the face of admonishment. Though, Bonnie's stern expression is quick to melt away, a fond amusement twitching at her lips.

"Not yet, anyhow."

The Widows all melt into laughter. Winona shakes her head, unable to suppress a little snort of her own.

Bonnie clasps her hands and slips back into her seat, commanding everyone's attention with a simple flick of her glossy hair and a quirk of her lips.

"So, it's settled, then," she says. No room for argument. "Everyone's showing face tonight except Dakota and Brandy."

Winona scowls but she doesn't say anything more. She knows when to choose her battles and this seems like one that she'll inevitably lose.

Jolene leans over again to swat at her shoulder with the back of her hand, offering her a gapped-toothed grin that's sugary sweet like molasses. Her freckles twinkle like gold dust constellations and she practically glows before the campfire, her silhouette aflame in molten amber. She smells faintly of grass and wild daises.

"Who knows, Win? You might even enjoy yourself."

Winona scoffs, leaning forward until the flames warm her face. "Doubt that very much, Miss Jameson."

Tallulah slinks off to get ready and Clementine leaves to watch the camp perimeter, her lucky revolvers twirling between her fingertips as she goes. The congregation whittles down until there's only a few of them staring into the dying fire, their liveliness fading in tandem with the sputtering flames.

Winona spoons the last of her stew into her mouth, scalding her tongue with the pleasant aftertaste of thyme. Her bowl is discarded in the big bucket they have for washing up, full to overflowing with sudsy water. As she rises to head back to her tent, Bonnie rounds on her, thick eyelashes fluttering and ruby lips upturned in a cruel crescent. She looks like trouble but, then again, when doesn't she?

"Here, Winnie, why don't you bring your fiddle? 'S been collecting dust since Stevi—"

Winona cuts her off with a glare. "I'm not bringing the damn fiddle," she grits.

It takes everything in her to keep her voice from breaking. At the unprecedented slip of that name, her cheeks suddenly feel all hot and a biting pressure has built behind her eyes. The world around her feels echoey, distant as the solid ground when you're being held underwater. She had heaped earth upon those memories to the best of her ability and something as simple as the first damn syllables is apparently enough to set her off. Winona feels distantly aware of how her hands have begun to tremble.

Ironically, she's grounded again when Bonnie calls her name. Winona stares straight ahead at her through the flickering flames, avoiding the sad looks she's getting from all her other sisters and gritting her teeth hard enough to do some serious damage. She can't stand the sympathy rolling off of them, even if they hold all the love in her heart.

"Stop being such a sourpuss," Bonnie reprimands at last. "Take the fiddle."

Ever the obedient right hand woman, Winona ends up taking the fiddle.

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THEY ARRIVE AT THE ENEM— OTHER camp just as the yolky sun dips beneath the horizon. A lapis shroud has fallen around the world, cloaking the terrain in shadow and stardust as chittering animals come alive in the nocturnal hour. Winona misses her tent miserably as she leans forward on her saddle horn and yawns, stretching 'til her shoulder blades pop to alleviate the exhaustion that's sinking down to the very marrow of her bones.

Annoyingly composed, Bonnie leads the gang atop of Adonis, her crimson dress fluttering in the sleepy wind. Winona rides loyally at her side with Tallulah and Jolene ambling along behind them, Clementine bringing up the rear. Their trigger fingers are crooked over their pistols out of habit, shoulders stiffening at every snap of a twig or disembodied jostling in the undergrowth. Tensions running high.

They veer off the ocherous roads and begin to trot through a patch of unkempt meadowland, their ears filled with the song of the lake's tide drawing further ashore. The trees reach down to them with every step forward, branches stretching and curling like rough fingertips, an invitation extending further into the darkness.

They follow dutifully until the faint smudge of swaying lanterns reaches their eyes through the tree trunks. Distant chatter bounces beneath the canopy and the cordial strum of a guitar dims the intimidation of the evening, an inviting warmth trickling from amidst the midnight darkness. Winona glances over her shoulder to share a frown with Clementine, her eyebrows setting as her guard goes up, steely and unrelenting. She just can't shake that gnawing feeling in her gut...

At some point down the winding path, Bonnie raises a hand and whistles to slow the girls down into a lazy trot. She raises a finger to her crimson lips in warning, flicking her free hand in a series of gestures that they had devised for stealth purposes.

And as if choreographed, a gruff voice barks: "Who's there?"

Bonnie grins. Her posture shifts and her Janus-faced nature comes out to play, a facade falling over her face like a velvet curtain as she takes centre stage in the forest clearing. The spotlight's about to be on her all night long — this is just her vocal warm up.

"Now, is that any way to greet your guests?" Bonnie calls back snippily, tugging on Adonis' reigns so he halts altogether.

They're met by a mean looking man, burly and broad shouldered with a heavy Bolt Action Rifle to match. His dark sideburns are met in the middle by an overgrown beard and when his lip curls back in a sneer, it's obvious that he's missing a few teeth. There are wonkily sewn patches where his flannel shirt must've been torn and his trousers are caked in mud, nettle stings prickling along the rosy peaks of his knuckles.

"Whaddya mean guests?"

Bonnie rolls her eyes. "You must be Bill."

He hitches his rifle up on his shoulder, the safety clicking off dangerously and his trigger finger lurching into action. The Widows all tense up, drawing their own guns as quick as burning lightning to stop him in his tracks. Now, there's four angry women stuck in a stalemate with a glowering gunslinger — Winona decides that they really have to stop meeting people like this.

Bonnie sighs and waves a ringed hand to set them at ease. She glares daggers at the man she had dubbed as Bill, tutting and shaking her head like a displeased madam and not someone being held at gunpoint.

"Dutch is expecting us," she tells him. Unwavering. "Does he really tell you folk nothing?"

A twig snaps in the undergrowth. Bill doesn't have time to give her so much as a halfwitted response, 'cause another man is merging into the clearing and revealing himself beneath the milky moonlight. He's got the hereditary dark hair and killer glare that the girls recognise in their own leader — they gaze upon their host for the evening, a strange face that's becoming all too familiar as of late.

"Questioning my leadership, cousin?"

Bonnie slides from her saddle in a jostling tempest of leather and lace. She begins to amble over to him, shiny boots crunching along the ground, her spurs dragging through the crinkling copper leaves.

"Oh, always, Dutch," she croons venomously. "Somebody has to do it."

When she stops in front of him, they don't embrace as would be typical for a familial reunion, but instead they size each other up like two people on opposite ends of a standoff. Watching one another intensely as if they're calculating precisely when to draw. The interaction feels tense until they share an uncannily twin grin and clasp their hands together in a tight handshake, their golden rings clashing like the grating roar of two blades.

The Widows are beckoned from their saddles and they dutifully follow after Bonnie as she's led through the trees and into the camp by her cousin. Winona keeps her eyes fixed on Bill suspiciously until he's fully out of sight, having resumed his position along the camp outskirts. Goosebumps prickle on her exposed forearms and she grits out a sigh, shuffling a little closer to Tallulah to give herself peace of mind.

She can see Dutch ahead of them with his arms splayed out, his crackling voice booming across the camp to garner everyone's attention.

"Look alive, people!" he crows. "We're entertainin', tonight!"

In that moment, Winona remembered something from her gang's time down New Austin ways. It was a few years back, shortly after they'd picked up Dakota near the border and had been planning on robbing some train or holding up some stagecoach. She was watching the perimeter of their makeshift camp, perched on the back of a caravan, and had watched as a coyote came crawling across the blistering desert. Ribs jutting out, a dry tongue lolling from its maw. It wasn't quite dead yet but from the way the vultures had been leering at the poor thing, it can't have had much longer to go. All vulnerable and exposed, yet the damn animal kept sauntering forward in the face of danger — as if it still had a fighting chance.

Now, walking into a stranger's camp with her guns holstered and fury contained, Winona understands exactly how the coyote must've felt.

Eyes bore into her nape from every angle, all mistrusting and suspicious. The conversations had dimmed slightly with their arrival, planting a seed of self consciousness in Winona's gut and allowing it to take root. Heat crawls up her neck, her eyes narrowing into a slitted glare as the murmurs congregate in her ears.

Winona reaches for her gun on instinct but as her fingertips graze the leather of her holster, she's frozen in place by Bonnie's cutting glare. Leaning in, Bonnie rests one hand on her shoulder and the other on the golden buckle of her own gun belt, her expression falsely calm.

"Play nicely," she murmurs.

"Bonnie, I don't know about this," Winona hisses back. "These folk kidnapped Brandy—"

"These folk could be our ticket to getting out of this damned ghost town, Miss Bennet." She leans in close, lips practically brushing Winona's ear as she spits her honey-sweet poison. "Watch your mouth. Mind your manners."

You sound like my mother. Winona wouldn't dare to say it out loud but the thought lingers at the base of her skull like the ringing aftershocks of a dynamite detonation. She bites her cheek until it bleeds and follows Bonnie over to the campfire, eyes darting between all of the unfamiliar gang members who are regarding her with the same unease.

Clementine drags Winona down next to her by the fire as Bonnie starts peacocking in her usual manner. She compels the strangers around her with the falsities of trust, her smile alluring and deceitfully warm, even managing to urge the guitar-wielding man to resume playing. Her siren song blurs into a garbled mess in Winona's ears as she tenses up and curls her fists up into ivory-knuckled claws, sweat beading along her nape as panic begins to set in.

Clementine elbows her and shakes her from the stupor that was taking hold. She's studying her side profile with an intense, oaken care, her lip caught between her teeth as she studies the uneven rise and fall of Winona's chest.

"Give them a chance, Win," coaxes Clementine. "Look, I get it. You're allowed to be nervous 'bout all this, but they're alright enough when you get to know them," her voice drops and her grin is contagious as she mutters, "or when you manage to get a few whiskies in 'em."

Winona huffs a laugh, pinching the bridge of her nose. "We'll see about that," she gripes.

The gang begin to flock around the campfire, hesitantly at first, regarding the False Widows as if they're a pack of fang-bearing rattlesnakes coiled up and ready to lunge. They ease into the mismatched seats strewn across the grass and tentatively begin their conversations anew.

Winona recognises all the men she'd already met, some of their encounters more awkward than others — there was Hosea and Arthur from the other night at the saloon, and the ginger prick who had kicked off this whole mess by swiping Brandy. Then, sitting right next to him is the boy whose head she'd almost blown off during the botched stagecoach robbery. She doesn't miss the way he eyes her nervously throughout the evening and can't help but feel a little sorry for threatening his life. Wouldn't be the first time, she supposes.

The last time she'd seen all of the other people in the Van der Linde gang, she'd been riding into their camp in the middle of the night guns a-blazing to take back Brandy. Now, she's sitting around their fire and listening to their lighthearted exchange of stories and songs. Not exactly how she was been expecting to spend her evening, but here she is. Damn you, Diamondback...

As much as Winona feels their apprehension, the whisky is quick to dampen the tense air and ease their underlying worries. The girls manage to loosen up and get more vocal after they've had a few drinks, chiming in to joke and converse with Dutch's gang. Even Winona finds herself cracking a smile every so often, chuckling away into her beer bottle as the evening gets away from her.

Bonnie smacks her lips, sloshing the dregs of liquor around at the bottom of the bottle. She sets it down, clasps her hands and reaches over to swat at Winona to get her attention.

"Why don't you play us something, Win?" she calls.

Winona knows what she's doing. Trying to rope her into the conversation, strike life in her like flame to a matchstick. Whenever their gang crosses paths with outsiders, Winona falls into a role from her past life as a wallflower, content to fade into the shadows and keep her head down. She never hears the end of it from Bonnie. So, she just waves her off and huffs bashfully.

"Oh, I don't know..."

"Go on, darling," Tallulah encourages.

"For old time's sake," Jolene pipes up.

For old time's sake. Winona hates the connotations of that, but she's being dragged up off the makeshift seat by Clementine before she can protest. She doesn't know when her sisters had time to get the damn violin out of the case, but it's being pressed into her hands and she's ushered closer to the light of the campfire before she can back out.

Ignoring the whistles and cheers, Winona tightens up the horsehair of her bow as she twists the ebony frog and sets to work tuning the dusty old thing, plucking the ancient strings to make sure they're up for a song or two. Clearing her throat, she straightens up and shakes the starry nostalgia from her eyes, trying to compose herself. Rid the trembling in her hands.

"Where'd you learn to play?" Hosea wonders aloud, his tone easy and conversational. "It's an unusual choice, no?"

"Well, my mother said playing the fiddle was unladylike," Winona says, glad for the distraction. Her lips upturn in a smirk. "I stole one the first chance I could in spite of her. Taught myself the rest."

One of the women, her hair in blonde ringlets — Winona comes to learn that her name is Karen — raises her bottle and whistles in approval.

"I like you, already," she calls.

Winona grins and shoots her a wink, revelling in the way it sends her into a fit of giggles. She grazes a fingertip along the D string, collecting dusty rosin on her callous and admiring the way it pales against the rosiness of her skin.

"Any requests, ladies?" Winona asks her sisters, propping the fiddle onto her shoulder with practiced fluidity.

Tallulah snaps her fingers frantically, trying to remember the name of something. "Oh, what's that one, again? You know, with the ranch hands and the rattlesnakes?"

Winona laughs and it rumbles deep in her chest, a grin cracking the hard expression on her face. "Don't worry, I know the one. Miss Jameson, if you'd be so kind?"

She extends a hand and tugs Jolene up from the ground as if she's featherlight, steadying her with a hand on the small of her back when she wobbles tipsily.

Jolene had never quite lost the performer's spark within herself, tailored for the Saint Denis stages and melodic serenades. She sings like a songbird, her velvet-smooth voice entwined harmoniously with the shrill balladry of Winona's fiddle. The other girls hum the words in a backing chorus, some members of the Van der Linde gang even joining in if they were familiar with the song.

They play on like that for a while, 'til her fingertips have gone numb and it seems that when one song ends, another begins. Winona even finds common ground with the gang's guitarist, Javier, and they manage to cherrypick a song that they're both familiar enough with to play together.

As they all dissolve into laughter and their applause rings out through the treetops, Winona feels herself cracking a smile against her chin rest. She loathes how easily she's melted into the comfort of these strangers, playing for them and singing with them like they're all good friends. She shouldn't be comfortable with these people and in a sense, she ain't, but something about their bond sets her at ease. They've got some underlying trait that sets them apart from the other gangs in this area, likening them more to the Widows than to the Raiders or the O'Driscolls. Maybe the beginning of this whole mess really had just been one big misunderstanding, maybe she should go a little easier on them. Would she have done the same, in their shoes? Is her resentment all for nothing?

Hell, Winona thinks she might be enjoying herself, after all.

Oh, how she hates it when her sisters are right...

A shrill accelerando note coasts across her strings and her bow surges through the air in an arc as she brandishes it at her side, the song caving in favour of cheers and applause. The rumbling flames fill the silence where the music had faded and some of them start dreaming up more song requests, their heads fogged by the heady liquor. Winona, however, feels like she hasn't had nearly enough.

"Alright, people, alright," she laughs. "Let a woman get a drink in before my goddamn hand falls off."

Jolene and Tallulah boo her. She waves them off, setting her violin back into its tatty old case for a minute of respite. Her ears keen, half listening to the story being told by the man they've all been calling Uncle, though her brain is too focused on seeking a drink to really comprehend it.

As Winona leans down to pluck her beer bottle from the grass, she feels the red hot pressure of eyes boring into the side of her face. A new glare, demanding and faraway. She glances up through the flyaways in her eyes and has to bite back a gasp at the golden eyes she's met with.

It's the woman from the other day — Mrs Adler, with her dangerous beauty and seemingly constant scowl — staring straight at her like she's something to be studied. Her hair's flowing down around her shoulders tonight and her shirtsleeves are rolled up around her elbows to spare her from the heat, a golden necklace with a pendant like solidified sunlight clasped around her clavicles. She's standing off to the side with a dark haired woman, frowning across camp at the gathering taking place. Winona decides that she prefers her a lot more when she's not pointing a gun at her head.

Maybe it's the alcohol getting to her head but she takes a quick swig from her bottle and tips her hat, all gentlemanlike and obliging. A peace offering after the other day.

Mrs Adler, Sadie, just shakes her head and faces away from the fanning heat of the campfire. Her sour expression makes Winona laugh through clenched teeth.

That dismissal just stokes the flames of curiosity that roars within Winona's chest.

She's only torn away from the enigmatic woman when Jolene tugs on her shirtsleeve, urging her back into playing before they have to head on back to their own camp for the night.

Though, as she picks up her fiddle and draws the bow into position, there's something about the glowering woman that draws her mind away from coherency. Something about her that makes Winona's mind fog and twist with the desire to figure her out...

AUTHOR'S NOTE

i'm so sorry i didn't post this sooner!! exam season put me on a bit of a hiatus and ive been in such a writing slump recently </3 i just want to play minecraft and sit about i have no motivation

i fear this is notttt my best work but i just wanted to post 😞😞 im so unhappy with how this chapter turned out and i was writing it over the course of manyyy many late nights so pls excuse any incoherent/rambling tangents

still, i hope you enjoyed it!! ive been doing more planning for this fic and rediscovering my love for rdr so hopefully i can update more frequently <3 mwah thank you for your patience, take care of yourselves